Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Domestic Bliss

The weekend before last, I went out to Austin to visit my old friend Stephen (and, coincidentally, to see the Back to the Future marathon at the Alamo Drafthouse). I spent a fair amount of time down near 6th street, and I can safely say Austin is a great place to do some street photography.

Probably my favorite photo of the trip though is this one. My friend has a big family -- a wife, two kids, four cats, two dogs, and maybe some other animals (I'm never quite clear on this). Naturally, I spent a fair amount of time photographing his family, particular his daughter Harper, who's in that stage where almost every picture of her is cute. Equally apparent to me is that while all these photos are sentimental, they aren't photos that interest me as photos. I still enjoyed taking them -- it's technically challenging to capture a fast-moving 2 year old, and there's the hope you manage to catch a candid of something a little more.

This shot did that for me -- I shot it because I was looking at the way Harper was framed, and how she had this relatively diffuse light streaming at her through the door, and a little contrast to her sister in the foreground. What I got was considerably more. Every element of this scene feels like a distinct place to me -- the toddler, the kid, the cat, and my eyes are forced to digest each little miniature scene.